The aftershocks of Wall Street's turmoil have left few corners of the globe unscathed. Russian stocks have been hit particularly hard, with the RTS index falling more than 11% in a single trading session today. It was the worst one day plunge in Moscow since 1998, prompting a halt in trading. On the heels of the conflict in Georgia and the recent plunge commodity prices, Russian shares have now lost more than 40% of their value over the past three months according to MSCI Barra.

If you think it's frustrating when your computer crashes, just be glad you're not running the London Stock Exchange. Trading in Europe's biggest stock market was suspended nearly all day after a system failure. When trading eventually resumed, British stocks ended the day up almost 4%. But London wasn't the only market affected by the outage. Trading in South Africa was also suspended because the Johannesburg Stock Exchange also uses London's technology platform to handle its trade processing.

After a blistering 36% surge last year, emerging market stocks are bleeding red ink. As of Sept. 5, the MSCI emerging markets index is down 30% since the start of the year. China and India - among the best-performing markets in 2007 - are now down 40% year-to-date.

As gut-wrenching as this volatility may be, it's important to keep the long-term perspective in mind when looking at emerging markets. Over the past 10 years, emerging markets have returned nearly 14% a year on an annualized basis, even after factoring in this year's steep plunge. By comparison, stocks in the U.S. and Europe have returned less than 3% annually over the same stretch. Emerging markets may be risky, but over the long haul they have rewarded patient investors.

Business is business, whether you're in Baltimore or Bangladesh. But you may be surprised to learn that accountants don't speak a common language worldwide. That may soon be changing. Under a new proposal by the Securities and Exchange Commission, some U.S. companies may begin using international accounting standards as soon as 2010.

The SEC's move is a huge endorsement for International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS as it's known for short. In recent years, IFRS has been gaining momentum around the world, with more than 100 countries using these principles. But as long as regulators in the U.S., the world's biggest securities market, weren't using IFRS, it was questionable whether or not it could be considered a truly global standard.

While IFRS isn't perfect, it makes life a lot easier for international investors. One of the most frequently cited concerns about international investing is that differing accounting standards are used worldwide. As a result, it can be hard for investors to make "apples to apples" comparisons between, say, a U.K. company and its Japanese competitors. With the adoption of IFRS, it will be easier than ever for investors to compare the performance of companies in their portfolios.